Michael Karam

When the Egyptian actor Omar Sharif died on Friday, many Lebanese were quick to claim him as their own. In many ways they were right to do so, as the world’s media was big-hearted enough to recognise Sharif’s roots.

Born Michel Shalhoub, he grew up in a small Greek Catholic community from the Cairo suburb of Heliopolis, many of whose residents – my mother’s family included – came from the Bekaa Valley town of Zahleh in the 19th century. “They were our neighbours,” she said when I called, tongue firmly in cheek, to offer my condolences.

  BEIRUT: Prime Minister Tammam Salam expressed readiness Monday to discuss the Cabinet’s decision-making formula at next week’s session to avert paralysis, calling on lawmakers to keep cool. "I will not facilitate the obstruction of the Cabinet… and we are all required to calm dawn," Salam said after meeting with a delegation from the Committee […]

  The Lebanese army contained on Monday a family dispute in the northern district of Akkar that left several people dead and wounded, the state-run National News Agency and Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3) reported. NNA said that Ahmed Hamza was killed and his brother Shaalan and three others were injured when the dispute on […]

  BEIRUT: The Health Ministry announced Monday that sweets purchased from a Bekaa Valley street vendor were responsible for poisoning seven people over the weekend. The vendor, an employee at al-Jarrah pastry shop, was selling the sweets from a vehicle that lacked refrigerators, the ministry said. Seven people, including a mother and her four children […]

  European Union Ambassador to Lebanon Angelina Eichhorst has expressed regret that she will leave Lebanon at the end of her mission amid a continued vacuum at the presidential palace in Baabda. In remarks to An Nahar daily published on Friday, the diplomat said: “I regret that I will leave Beirut in this situation, without […]

  BEIRUT: A stormy Cabinet session ended Thursday with a compromise that allowed Prime Minister Tammam Salam to pass one agenda item relating to funds to public hospitals, while the Free Patriotic Movement’s ministers won a pledge to discuss the government’s decision-making system at the next meeting. The long-simmering tension between FPM leader MP Michel […]

  BEIRUT: A Lebanese national who had joined extremist group ISIS was killed in Iraq, according to media reports Friday. Hasan al-Masri, better known by his nom de guerre “Aba al-Qassem al-Lubnani” was killed fighting alongside ISIS in Iraq. Masri hails from the Tripoli neighborhood of Baddawi. Around 400 people from north Lebanon are believed […]

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi Arabia’s Prince Saud al-Faisal, who was the world’s longest-serving foreign minister with 40 years in the post until his retirement this year, has died, the ministry spokesman said Thursday. He was 75.

  BEIRUT: Prime Minister Tammam Salam Thursday appeared unmoved by street protests called for by Free Patriotic Movement leader Aoun to coincide with a Cabinet session Thursday. "The Cabinet meeting will take place today as scheduled to [discuss] the agenda as is,” Salam said in remarks published Thursday by local daily As-Saifr. Salam said the […]